


back to summer

by ShowMeAHero



Series: second chances [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Conversations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s01e08 Much More, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: It’s been days. At least, Jaskier thinks it’s been days.He doesn’t know much about the people who captured him, but he doesn’t think there’s muchtoknow. It sounds like dots have been connected between Geralt, his Child Surprise, and Princess Cirilla, and those troubles somehow made their way back to Jaskier.If he ever sees Geralt again, he thinks he’ll tell him how hypocritical it was of him to blame Jaskier for allhistroubles, when it seems that allJaskier’stroubles have Geralt at the root of them. Well, most of them, anyways. The most pressing of them, certainly.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: second chances [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020742
Comments: 25
Kudos: 397





	back to summer

**Author's Note:**

> OOOOH SHIT LOOK WHO'S SPIRALING

Jaskier hasn’t seen Geralt in months.

Winter is coming up fast anyways.

Geralt had a plan for every season. It’s been tragic for Jaskier, a poet at the worst of times, because there’s been no real reprieve from thoughts of him. For them, every summer would be spent covering as much land as they could, walking to spare Roach, collecting as much coin between music and monsters as possible. The autumns were spent on a more direct path, searching out a particularly nasty spot that might take him a bit of time to take care of, come winter. In the winter, they’d always hunker down in one of those spots, in some inn or their own tiny cottage, if they were lucky. The springs afterwards were spent starting back out on the road, full of new beginnings, preparing for the difficult work in the summer ahead.

They enjoyed each other's' time, or so Jaskier had thought. He knows Geralt had had a horrible day on the mountain, he  _ knows  _ that, but it’s no excuse for the way he spoke to him. Geralt’s put up with a lot from him over the years, but he’s put up with a lot from Geralt, too, and he’s not going to stay where he’s not wanted.

Jaskier sighs, tearing another shred off the hard husk of bread in his hands. It’d been thrown at him a few days ago, and nearly gone now; he’ll need to start looking for more food soon, and an inn to stay in, because traveling on foot is quickly becoming impractical in the snow and wind.

_ Camping out in the woods even moreso, _ he reflects, glancing over his shoulder. He can’t see anything in the darkness of the woods beyond, so he turns back to the fire. No point in dwelling on what he can’t even lay eyes on.

He snorts to himself. That’s basically all he does: dwells on Geralt. He feels both angry and like a fool, in turns and, sometimes, simultaneously. He knows their whole lives together couldn’t have been a lie — Geralt’s not a good enough actor for that — but he’d made it clear while they were traveling together that Jaskier wasn’t his first choice in companions. After the way he’d treated Jaskier once Yennefer left them on that mountain, it’s become apparent he wasn’t Geralt’s first choice in much.

Jaskier wants to say he wants more for himself, but, ultimately, he doesn’t. There’s a reason “Her Sweet Kiss” is the song he’s been taking to every tavern, every inn, and every roadside stop he’s found, even though people are hungry for jigs to cheer them up and ballads telling them more about the war. All he has is what’s happened to him, and Geralt’s happened to him. He’s been avoiding any more than that, because wherever there’s trouble, Geralt’s bound to be there, and Jaskier’s not in the market to get blamed for any more of the shit getting shoveled into Geralt’s life.

Years spent traveling with Geralt were well-spent, Jaskier thinks, if for no other reason than skill-building: he’s more than capable of surviving by himself. For a while, anyways, and as long as he can take breaks at stops along the way. He’s exceptionally good at shoveling his own shit, he thinks, never  _ mind  _ Geralt’s, and even better at ignoring it once its there. One more thing he and Geralt have in common, he supposes.

In the distance, there’s a rustle. There’s no twig snap, and Jaskier strains to hear breath or footsteps, but there’s nothing. All he can hear is the crackle of the fire right underneath his hands.

“Hello?” Jaskier calls. Whatever’s there must already know that he is, too, or else it wouldn’t have ventured close enough that he could hear it. He hopes it’s just an animal. Abandoning his bread and picking up the closest object — his lute, he realizes mournfully — he steps closer to the fire. “I’ll have you know, I’m—”

He’s cut off by a sharp whistle that cuts through the air, high and quick. It stops with a soft  _ thud _ into his chest; he looks down to see a small, thin dagger embedded in him between the open folds of his cloak.

“Fuck,” he curses, tongue already feeling heavy in his mouth. Jaskier crashes to his knees, tipping sideways onto the ground. Whatever the dagger’s coated in — poison, he assumes — is making his body shut down hard and fast, his legs already uselessly numb. The side of his face is too close to the fire, starting to get licked by the flames, but he can’t make himself move it away. He just slams his eyes shut.

Someone grabs him by the back of the neck, wind rushes into his face, and that’s the last thing he can properly focus on.

* * *

Geralt’s spent so much time and effort  _ getting  _ to Kaer Morhen, he doesn’t think he’s ever going to leave it. Ciri’s safe here, for one; for another, he’d rather not make the walk back down again. Too much nonsense going on down there, the perfect amount of nothing going on up here.

Well, in theory.

In reality, Geralt and Ciri’s swordplay practice is cut short by a portal opening right alongside their sandpit. Geralt nearly throws the point of his wooden practice sword into Yennefer’s shoulder before he realizes it’s her.

“Yennefer!” Ciri exclaims. She’s delighted, but Geralt can already see Yennefer’s face, and he knows this isn’t a pleasant visit.

“What is it?” Geralt asks. Yennefer’s portal seals up behind her, and she lifts some splintered object in her hand. He tosses his wooden sword aside and crosses the pit in two long strides to her, taking the thing from her to examine.

“This was left on the front steps of the cottage you’re supposedly living in,” Yennefer tells him. The cottage is one of her safe houses, but the magic to imprint his energy there is his own. He’s glad it’s working, even if it means someone  _ has  _ tracked him to it and has left something for him there. “It had a note with it.”

It’s a bundle of broken wood, tied together tightly with copper wire and fabric. Geralt’s slow heart thuds in his chest as he trails the silk between his fingers, furrowing his brow as he studies it. He knows it’s familiar, both by sight and touch. It only takes a second before he realizes it’s Jaskier’s, one of the outfits he used to enjoy wearing in autumn, crimson with silver thread. He flips the bundle over again and realizes the wire isn’t wire at all, but lute strings, and the splintered wood must be from the same instrument. The copper he smells isn’t metal but blood, splattered across the broken thing, staining the silk.

“What’s happened, Geralt?” Ciri asks, right beside him. The wood creaks under his fingers, knuckles going white. For a moment, he can’t think. Not anything.

“Geralt,” Yennefer echoes. He lifts his head, her words whirling through his mind.

“The note,” Geralt demands. “What did it say?”

Yennefer holds up a scrap that he snatches without hesitation. It looks like it’s from a journal; where the edges of the page are torn, Geralt can see the bottom half of a looping line of writing. He recognizes the handwriting. On top of it, splattered with ink, someone’s written “WITCHER” and a location fairly far from the cottage, but not all that far from Kaer Morhen. Geralt turns the page over, but there’s no more information. Just more of Jaskier’s scrawling handwriting, working out a lyric while this page was still in his notes.

“They have the bard?” Yennefer guesses. Geralt crunches the page in his fist, scrunching it into a tiny ball and shoving it into one of the inner sleeves of his tunic. “And you’re going after him.”

“Going after who?” Ciri asks. She looks up at Geralt, already red-faced, excited for something new and angry at being left out, all at once.

“Do you have any idea who has him?” Geralt demands.

“Who has  _ who,  _ Geralt?” Ciri says over him.

“Who has  _ whom,  _ Ciri,” Yennefer corrects gently. Ciri glares at her over her shoulder. “Your education is just as important as—”

_ “Yennefer,”  _ Geralt cuts her off sharply. Yennefer’s eyes snap back to him, studying his face for a long moment.

“I don’t know,” she says, ultimately. With a frustrated growl, Geralt leaves her there, pushing off for the stables. “Would you like some help?”

“We should come with you!” Ciri exclaims.

“No,” Geralt says over his shoulder. He feels like his heart is racing, even if he’s felt what a human’s beating heart feels like and his is nowhere near as close.

Geralt still has the remains of Jaskier’s lute and his clothes held tight in his fist, fingers knotted up in the strings and silks. It seems to be the only weight tethering him to the ground. His mind’s gone blank, thinking of Jaskier the last time he saw him, the way he’d spoken to him, the things he said, the broken voice Jaskier had said goodbye to him with. The months since have been filled with finding Ciri before fighting their way up to Kaer Morhen. So many times, he’s wanted to find Jaskier, and so many times he’s been unable to.

He’s had no choice but to continue on without him. Getting Ciri to safety is his priority, but he’s hoped that word of Jaskier would come to him sooner rather than later. Not like this, though. The last he’d heard, Jaskier had written another famous song, so clearly about him and  _ them  _ and everything that happened with Yennefer that Geralt can hardly stand to hear it. Each lyric embedded itself in his head anyways, and he remembers it in perfect clarity, but,  _ fuck,  _ he wishes he didn’t.

There had been so long where he and Jaskier hadn’t been together, and everything with Yennefer happened, and it all fell apart. He doesn’t know if Jaskier wants anything from him, if he’s still alive to want anything, but Geralt is pretty sure he knows what  _ he  _ wants.

After what Jaskier had said to him, really  _ not  _ that long ago, on the mountaintop, about working out what pleases them — he’s more than sure he knows what he wants.

“Geralt,” Yennefer says, as Geralt hastily starts dressing Roach. “You don’t even know where you’re going.”

“I know where I’m going,” Geralt snaps at her. He grabs one of his prepacked bags off the hooks by the door and throws it across his shoulder.

“Allow me to correct myself,” Yennefer says. “You don’t know what you’re walking  _ into.  _ Whoever it is knows you’re meant to be at the cottage—”

“Wasn’t that the point?” Geralt asks. He unsheathes his swords, examines them, then sheathes them again before equipping them. “If you’re not going to help—”

“If you would  _ stop,”  _ Yennefer says firmly, “for a moment,” and Geralt does, glaring at her. “Whoever captured him knows he’s important to you.”

“The whole damn  _ world  _ knows,” Geralt reminds her. “He won’t stop singing those fucking songs.”

“Regardless, he’s already been caught,” Yennefer tells him. “You’re smarter than this. He needs your help, and you need a plan. Think before you act.”

Geralt glares at her still. He  _ has  _ a plan, and it’s to move as fast as he can south until he finds Jaskier. His  _ plan _ is to not be too late, and his backup plan is revenge.

“I can help you,” Yennefer offers. “Vesemir and your Witcher brothers would probably want to help, too, you know. You’re not alone.”

It sounds like Jaskier’s voice is echoing behind hers, and that makes Geralt pause more than anything. Taking a breath, he turns back to look at Roach rather than Yennefer, fixing his eyes on the white patch above her nose.

“Why do you want to help him?” Geralt asks. He’s trying not to sound suspicious, but he is, a bit. The last time Yennefer and Jaskier saw each other, she’d made no secret of her distaste for him. “You hate him.”

“I don’t hate him,” Yennefer says. “It was  _ you  _ I hated that day.” Geralt scowls at her and turns back to his horse. “You know that’s not what I—”

“You’re wasting my time with all this,” Geralt tells her. He’s itching to leave, wanting more than anything to making his way down the mountain as fast as he can. It’s been months since he last saw Jaskier, and, suddenly, he can’t last any longer. “Riddles and talk. Jaskier could be dead by now.”

“Then what time are you wasting with riddles and talk, really?” Yennefer asks. “Do you know how hard it was to see the two of you still together, after all that time? After every time you’ve left me? After…” Yennefer’s quiet for a moment. Geralt can hear her hair moving; her heart’s quick, but not too fast. “How did you feel about Eyck?”

“Frustrated,” Geralt answers. He finally hauls himself up into Roach’s saddle.

“Frustrated,” Yennefer echoes. “See, when I saw you with…” She doesn’t say Jaskier’s name, but the sharp looks she gives him when he looks up is enough. “Do you know what I felt?”

“What, Yen?” Geralt demands, impatient.

“Grief,” Yennefer tells him. Her eyes shine violet. He feels guilty, in the bottom of his chest, even though they’ve already talked about it and even though they’ve both made it incredibly clear they’re not interested in trying any of that shit together again. “And I felt a bit absurd, for thinking I could’ve had you.”

Geralt doesn’t answer that. He doesn’t know what  _ to  _ say to that. Instead, he asks, “Are you coming or aren’t you?”

Before she can answer, the door to the stables crashes open, Ciri pulling Vesemir behind herself. She turns back to him, presents Geralt with her slim arms, and pointedly asks,  _ “See?” _

“Geralt,” Vesemir says, looking Geralt over. “What’s happened?”

“Someone’s in danger and he won’t tell me who,” Ciri answers for him.

“The bard,” Yennefer supplies.

“Dandelion?” Vesemir asks.

“It’s  _ Jaskier?”  _ Ciri demands. “I  _ love  _ his songs! He has such a wonderful song about summer mornings, I remember it!”

Geralt remembers it, too, and remembers the real summer morning when Jaskier had written it, sprawled naked and dewy with sweat across Geralt’s lap in the grass while Geralt had mended holes in their clothes. A slow day, Geralt had thought at the time, but the song captured a warm, lazy moment in his life that he still remembers so vividly, now, even without hearing the song. He’d thought, eventually, he’d find Jaskier and apologize, and the song wouldn’t hurt so much to hear anymore. Abruptly, he’s confronted with the realization that he may not get that chance.

Geralt urges Roach to back up, fully intending to just ride past them and force Vesemir out of the entryway if he must.

_ “Geralt—”  _ Vesemir begins, but Geralt’s run out of the very thin patience he had left.

“You’re wasting my time,” Geralt cuts him off, sharp. “I have to leave  _ now,  _ get out of my way.”

“If you’d just wait a moment—”

“You don’t understand,” Geralt says. “Move out—”

“I  _ do  _ understand,” Vesemir booms over him. The stables are silent as he adds, “I’ve heard the songs that bard’s sung, Geralt. He’s not a secret.”

Geralt hears what he’s saying. He looks down at him from horseback, the old man’s eyes locked on his. This is the same man who saw through him when he was a boy, and he knows he’s being seen through now, speared with his gaze. He sees frustration in Vesemir’s face as much as he sees resignation and the understanding he was promised. After a beat, Vesemir turns and whistles sharply.

“What’re you—”

“Take your brothers,” Vesemir says. “I’ll remain here with Ciri.”

“I want to help,” Ciri insists. Lambert’s already coming in the stables; Geralt can hear Eskel crunching through the frosted grass behind him.

“What’s happened?” Lambert asks. He looks bewildered when he sees Geralt already mounted on horseback. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Should I call for Coën?” Eskel asks.

“The bard Dandelion has been captured,” Yennefer explains to them. “Geralt’s decided to play the knight in shining armor and save him all alone.”

“Fucking idiot,” Lambert grumbles, grabbing one of his traveling cloaks and heading for his own mount. Geralt’s frantic to leave, and Roach can feel it, shifting uneasily as he waits for Eskel to return with Coën. It seems to take forever for them to get themselves packed and on horseback. The entire time they’re preparing, Ciri is at Geralt’s side.

“Please, let me help,” Ciri begs him. “Take me with you and I’ll help him, I can carry one of your swords—”

“You won’t,” Geralt tells her.

“Please, I just want—”

“Ciri,” Geralt says, leaning down in his saddle. He cups her chin in his hand and looks into her brilliant green eyes. She looks desperate, too, though for a different reason than him. “Your safety is the most important thing. Vesemir will protect you, but I can’t do what I need to do if I’m worried about you, too. And I will worry about you, even if you don’t need me to,” he adds, before she can argue.

Ciri’s incredibly clever and far from stupid. She keeps looking up at him for a long moment, face still pink-red, before she finally nods. He presses their foreheads together.

“Stay safe,” he tells her. “Look after Vesemir for us.”

“That’s right, watch after him, Ciri,” Lambert jokes. “Old man might break a hip before we get back.”

Coën cracks a smile, but Vesemir’s still focused up on Geralt. When they look at each other, Roach shifting and itching to leave, Geralt antsy for the same, Vesemir says, “Ride as fast as you can. You can bring him back here to winter if you find him.”

Geralt nods once before he prods Roach to back up. Yennefer approaches him, laying a hand on his leg.

“I won’t accompany you,” Yennefer tells him, voice low. He’s sure the others can hear, but they don’t show any indication of it, all looking away. “I’m going to stay here and prepare to receive him. I’m assuming he’s going to need a healer.”

Geralt nods to her, as well. “Thank you,” he says.

She doesn’t answer, but she squeezes his thigh before backing away from him. With that, Geralt digs his heels in, and Roach takes off, faster than he’s pushed her before. The bundle of Jaskier’s broken lute and torn clothes is still clutched tight against him, smelling so sharply of Jaskier’s blood that he can’t help but try to push Roach even faster.

* * *

It’s been days. At least, Jaskier thinks it’s been days.

He doesn’t know much about the people who captured him, but he doesn’t think there’s much  _ to  _ know. It sounds like dots have been connected between Geralt, his Child Surprise, and Princess Cirilla, and those troubles somehow made their way back to Jaskier.

If he ever sees Geralt again, he thinks he’ll tell him how hypocritical it was of him to blame Jaskier for all  _ his  _ troubles, when it seems that all  _ Jaskier’s  _ troubles have Geralt at the root of them. Well, most of them, anyways. The most pressing of them, certainly.

The Nilfgaardians want Cirilla, and so they want Geralt; they want Geralt, and so they want Jaskier, the traveling bard who was the only one known to travel consistently with the Witcher they’re after. These aren’t even Nilfgaardians that have captured him, either. They’re just a band of spies looking for information from him that they can trade for a safe place within Nilfgaard. He can’t blame them for looking for a haven; however, he feels he should be allowed to blame them for using  _ him _ to secure it.

Problem is, Jaskier has no idea where Geralt is. He has a fair guess — more than a fair guess, he’s almost certain Geralt returned to Kaer Morhen — but he can’t say for sure, and he’d never tell, even if he could.

They’ve tried everything they can think of, he believes, to get him to talk, short of just killing him flat out. He hasn’t eaten since he arrived; he’s been given water twice, but the last time was… Well, some time ago, he thinks. The cell they’ve given him is too small for him to lay down in, too short for him to stand up in. He feels almost permanently curled up, wrapped around himself all the time. The thing’s entirely stone with metal bars, cold, damp. He just can’t get warm; he can hardly do anything except mumble to himself, anymore. Sometimes he’ll sing to himself. That’s about it.

When they pull him out of the cell, they torture him. He’s been subject to his fair share of kidnappings and torments over his years, but this is particularly heinous, even by his standards. They’ve held his head underwater, they’ve stretched his limbs until his knees and elbows cracked apart, they’ve burnt his flesh, they’ve whipped his back, they’ve carved out hunks from his belly and his face.

When the poison in his blood subsides, they withdraw the dagger and replace it with a new one. He’s felt almost permanently sluggish, brain getting increasingly foggier, thoughts flying from his head the moment he thinks them.

By now, Jaskier’s exhausted. He knows it’s at least been days; he hopes it hasn’t been more than a week, because, if it has, he thinks he might just be fucked.

“Wake up,” someone tells him. He drags his eyes open and tries to look above his head, but it’s difficult. It’s more difficult every time. His head hurts fiercely, and he shakes, his chest rattling like he’s going to fall to pieces. He’s impossibly cold and slick with sweat; he’s nervous he’s got a fever, from some infection somewhere, but he can’t tell where. Even if he could, he has no way to treat it. They’ve taken his clothes and left him bare and shackled in the tiny cell.

“Why?” Jaskier asks, slurring his words to mush. “I’ve got no reason not to sleep. Sleeping’s really all I’ve got, besides the m—”

A blinding pain explodes up his spine and slithers through his skull, and Jaskier’s jaw snaps shut, teeth slamming together so hard he feels like they crack. His eyes roll back and close against his will. His entire body’s alight with flames of pain.

All at once, it stops. Panting, gasping for air, Jaskier dry-heaves, coughing up bile onto the stone floor. He collapses on his side, still trying to catch his breath. He’s nauseous and dizzy, the world a black-blue blur. Candlelight flickers red, somewhere; he sees it like a smear in his vision.

“How used to magic are you?” one of the spies asks. He thought he used to be able to differentiate them, but he can hardly open his eyes, now.

“I can take anything,” Jaskier wheezes. He swallows, tasting copperly blood and bitter bile. The next mouthful, he spits out onto the floor. “Even your stupid fucking magic.”

“You won’t have to deal with the stupid fucking magic if you just tell us where the stupid fucking Witcher is,” the spy reminds him.

“I’ve no idea where Geralt is,” Jaskier says,  _ again.  _ Again and again and again. He’s lost track of how many times he’s told them that. They’re barking up the wrong tree, regardless; they think that Geralt will come for him, if they can’t get Jaskier to break. They’re wrong. Jaskier won’t break, and Geralt won’t come. They’re going to fail, and Jaskier’s content in that, at least. Geralt will be safe a while longer, and so will Princess Cirilla. By extension, Jaskier believes, the world might be saved.

It’s easier to think of himself as some hero, like the ones he writes about. Easier to think about himself dying to save the world, rather than dying to save Geralt. The latter just seems pathetic, especially after everything. Even if that’s the one that’s the truth.

“Antonina,” the spy says, and the pain erupts inside his mind again. He feels like his limbs seize, like his lungs shrink; he feels like he’s going completely mad.

His entire body relaxes again, he doesn’t know how much later. It felt like an eternity of burning, splintering pain, whipping through his insides like a fucking storm. He thinks he wants to die, genuinely, if it might make this stop. He has no other ideas on how to escape this. All he wants is for it to  _ stop. _

“Please,” Jaskier begs. He turns his face into the stone, then forces his arms underneath himself, pushes himself up slowly on broken, shaking limbs until he can sit up, even just a bit. His head rolls up to try and look at the spy and the sorceress, but he still can’t see, not really. “I haven’t gotten anything to say to you and, to be honest, if I did, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say anything, I’d sooner die.” He licks his chapped lips and drops his head into his shackled hands, pulls at the torn chunks of his hair.

“You’re going to,” the spy says. Jaskier stares hard down at the stone floor, fingers knotted up in his own hair. Just staring. He doesn’t know what to do anymore.

“I figured,” Jaskier chokes out. Still looking down, he asks, “Would you do me a favor, would you make it quick? Would you just lop my head right off, slit my throat, something?”

“Given up on your Witcher coming to rescue you?” the spy asks. Jaskier knows he’s fishing for information, but he already sounds mildly disappointed. They both know Jaskier’s not going to give up anything more about Geralt, and he’s starting to realize Geralt’s not coming.

“I never thought he would,” Jaskier says. He rolls forward a little more, unable to hold himself up any longer, and lets himself fall back down onto the stones, curled on his side. Exhausted, he motions with fluttering fingers at his throat. “Just get it over with. You’re wasting your own time.”

Down the hall, there’s a scream. Jaskier waits for more pain, or for a sword in the neck, or for— well, nothingness, maybe, if he  _ does  _ die quickly. Instead, nothing happens.

He hears the creak of the door, and then the heavy  _ clunk  _ of the lock sliding into place. His body starts trembling again, shaking apart from his chest out. It hurts so much that it hardly hurts at all anymore.

“Sounds like you were wrong,” the spy says. Jaskier can’t tell if he’s excited or nervous, but he knows he’d rather stay in his cell either way. “Antonina?”

The blinding pain, again. Jaskier buries his face in his chest and covers himself with his arms, squeezing as tightly as he can, but he can’t chase the pain away. It courses through him in impossibly horrible waves, over and over, exhausting him until he thinks he’ll nearly fall asleep in the pain. Distantly, that worries him, but he’s starting to realize he won’t have much of a choice. He thinks his brain might truly be melting.

Another scream. It’s different, and closer, but the pain still doesn’t stop, so Jaskier can’t put too much attention on it. He can’t tell what’s his own ragged screaming and what’s outside the door, after— not that long or an eternity, for all he knows, actually. All time’s lost,  _ he’s  _ lost, drifting into a hazy, fading cloud of pain and nothingness.

The whole room seems to rattle. Once, then again, then again. The world shakes like an earthquake; for a bewildering moment, Jaskier thinks it’s his fault, his fevered brain telling him his trembling limbs are tearing the world apart. He tries to hold himself together, but his fingers and arms won’t move to cooperate. The rattling keeps going, harder, louder; it’s accompanied by banging, then shouting, incoherent and feral.

Jaskier’s hiding his face, so he doesn’t see who crashes into the room, but he does hear it when the door gives in. The lock breaks and smashes apart, metal collapsing inward as whoever it is fights their way inside. There’s a cut-off cry, then a scream, and the pain stops.

Everything stops, actually. The pain and the rattling and the noise, all of it stops, all at once. Jaskier feels like maybe he’s died and he’s adrift now, in a haze of noiselessness, outside of his body.

Then, a hand on him. He jerks backwards.

“Jaskier,” a voice says. Jaskier knows he knows the voice, and he frowns, lifting his chin up. It takes some time, but he manages it, then sighs, relief and disbelief flooding through him at once.

“Geralt,” he breathes. His broken hand reaches for Geralt’s face through the bars of his cell, but he misses and gets knotted up in his hair instead. He leaves his hand tangled there, says, “I didn’t tell them anything, I didn’t, Geralt, I didn’t—”

“Jaskier,” Geralt cuts him off, voice impossibly soft and hard all at once, cradling Jaskier’s head through the bars. He turns around and snaps, “Find the keys.”

Someone else is in the room, then, but Jaskier can’t see past Geralt. He just keeps staring, focuses on him. There’s terror leaking into him, now that he’s allowing himself to feel it, a real fear that he’s too far gone. Geralt will be so angry if he gives up now, he  _ can’t  _ give up now, not after Geralt’s finally found him again.

“I didn’t know,” Jaskier tells Geralt. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t—”

“Shh, Jaskier,” Geralt shushes him. There’s another heavy noise, metal on metal, and then the cell door swings open. Geralt’s on him in seconds, unlocking his shackles, breaking him free and hauling him out of the cell.

“Fuck,” someone else says. “Geralt, can he make the trip?”

“Maybe one of us should ride back for the witch,” another voice suggests. “Keep him still.”

“No,” Geralt growls. “We don’t have the time.” There’s clinking, more rattling, though it’s smaller this time. Jaskier’s not even sure when he closed his eyes, but he only hears Geralt when he says, “Jaskier, this is going to hurt, but I need you to hold on. Alright?”

“Yes,” Jaskier forces out through clenched teeth. There’s the soft noise of Geralt uncorking a bottle, and then something’s sizzling on his skin. He cries out, his face exploding with stinging pain; it rushes through him in waves, down his chest, down his arms. Geralt soaks him in whatever the potion is. It makes his wounds crackle, hissing and spitting as whatever healing magic and medicine in it works on his flesh, but it won’t be enough. Jaskier remembers from traveling with Geralt how ineffective his potions for humans are. The fact that he carried them for Jaskier at all used to make Jaskier’s heart sing.

Now, all he feels is pain. One of Geralt’s strong arms holds him tight to his chest, keeping him immobile while the potion works.

“Open your mouth, Jaskier,” Geralt instructs him. It takes a monumental effort, but he does open his jaws. Geralt’s fingertips touch his lips, gently holding his chin to keep his mouth open as he sets a bottle between his teeth and dumps it down his throat.

The effect is immediate: it’s like an explosion in his belly, and he groans, turning into Geralt’s chest. Geralt strokes his back, his hand huge and warm on his back, up and down, over and over. His veins are fire, pushing flames around his body, pain slithering through him until it’s all he can do just to stay conscious.

“I’m going to pick you up,” Geralt tells him. Jaskier doesn’t respond; he doesn’t think he could if he wanted to. His tongue and teeth won’t cooperate anymore. He’s just exhausted. Over his shoulder, Geralt asks, “Can I have a cloak? Or is there a blanket in here?”

“There’s nothing here,” one of the voices from before says.

“Take mine,” a third new voice says. “It’s dry, I didn’t get anything on it.”

There’s a bit of shuffling. Jaskier forces his eyes open again to see Geralt’s face above him, focused on sitting him up enough to wrap a scratchy wool cloak around him. He huffs, smiling. Geralt always wears wool; he’s never been bothered by how it feels on his skin like Jaskier is, hasn’t ever been bothered by silly little human things like that. It’s so like him to use it now, and it makes Jaskier relax, for some reason.

It seems important to talk to Geralt, suddenly, but then, that’s not a surprise. He’s always felt it was important for them to be talking.

“Sorry,” he makes himself say. It’s not easy by any stretch, but he does it. He doesn’t even care how nasty Geralt had been the last time they saw each other; the years they spent enjoying each other’s company outweighs that, in the moment. “Didn’t… I didn’t think you’d come. I wanted you safe.”

“What’d he say?” one of the voices asks.

Geralt ignores them, brings his hand up to Jaskier’s face again. “I’m safe,” Geralt assures him. Jaskier nods, twice, letting his head fall against Geralt’s chest. His neck can’t support it anymore. “You’re safe now, too. I have to get you out of here, though, and it’s going to hurt.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “What a change. Darling, you… You shouldn’t have.”

Geralt doesn’t move for a moment. Then, he huffs the smallest laugh, and that makes Jaskier smile, even as he lets his eyes close again. He misses seeing Geralt’s golden eyes, especially after how long it’s been, but he thinks he can trust Geralt to make sure he sees them again. If he doesn’t— Well, at least they were the last thing he saw.

“Hold on, Jaskier,” Geralt tells him, and then the pain starts again, lighting up each bit of his body in turn. Jaskier can’t help but cry out, pulling his legs up close and coiling as tight as he can as Geralt draws him into his arms and stands.

* * *

Geralt holds Jaskier as close as possible. He doesn’t want to hurt him, but he wants even less to let him go. Not again.

He follows his brothers back down the tall staircase of the abandoned keep Jaskier was being kept in. They follow the path of dead spies on their way out, each one just as brutally slaughtered by Geralt as the last. Jaskier drifts in and out of consciousness the entire time. It worries Geralt, but at least Jaskier isn’t feeling the pain when he’s unconscious. The potions Geralt gave him should slow his infection, at least, and prevent any new infection from setting in, but he needs to be healed as soon as possible. He needs magic if he’s going to survive, and Geralt feels immense gratitude for Yennefer waiting on the other end of his journey home.

“Geralt?” Jaskier asks, almost impossible to hear. It’s barely even his name, more a mess of sounds, but he’s heard Jaskier incoherent with drink and drug and sex and sleep innumerable times. He could recognize his own name from Jaskier even if he spoke it in a dead language. The way he says it is always the same.

“Don’t talk,” Geralt tells him. They crash back out the front doors and run for their horses. Geralt motions for Eskel to stop beside Roach. He asks Jaskier, “I need you to hold on for a second, Jaskier, alright? Do you hear me?”

Jaskier blinks sluggishly. He manages to get his eyes open, so bright blue and clean in the middle of his bloodied, gaunt face. His eyes have never changed over the years. Not that Jaskier changes much at all, really, but his eyes are the one things that have truly stayed the same. They’re how Geralt knows he’s really looking at  _ Jaskier. _ At someone he trusts, loves. His best friend.

“Geralt?” Jaskier asks again. “Am I going to die?”

_ “No,”  _ Geralt insists, chest throbbing. He ignores the feeling, fights it back, ignores his brothers’ pitying eyes on him as he tells Jaskier, “No, you’re not going to die.”

“If I do,” Jaskier says, “I love you.”

“Stop it, Jaskier,” Geralt tells him. He grips his face, pushes their foreheads together. Jaskier tips his chin up just enough to kiss him, and Geralt kisses him back, holds his bloodied cheek as tight as he can. The kiss isn’t anywhere near as fierce as Jaskier usually kisses him. It’s breaking Geralt’s heart, and he didn’t think that was possible. It feels like he’s slipping away.

A terror unlike any Geralt thinks he’s felt in a long,  _ long  _ time seizes him, and he kisses Jaskier harder, drawing him in close until he tastes only his blood and bile and his  _ mouth, _ the shining, melting buttercup-warmth that’s only and always been Jaskier.

He feels Jaskier’s breathing even out, feels him go slack. His hand slips from Geralt’s armor, leaving bloody streaks as his fingertips swipe down, his hand falling into his lap. Geralt breaks their kiss and just breathes, for a moment, their foreheads still pressed together.

“Geralt,” Eskel says, quiet, not unkind. Geralt takes one more breath, then separates them, passing Jaskier over to Eskel so he can climb into Roach’s saddle. Eskel passes Jaskier up to him, seats him in front of Geralt. Geralt wraps one arm around Jaskier’s chest, cups his jaw in one big hand to keep his head upright, tipped back against Geralt’s shoulder. He pushes his cheek into Jaskier’s temple and spurs Roach on.

While they were inside the keep, snow began to fall from the heavy white clouds hanging close over their heads. The decreased visibility slows him just a bit, but the snow starts to slow Roach even more. He tries to push her, tries to get her as far as she can as fast as she can, but she’s still just an animal and this is still becoming a blizzard. She can only do so much, especially as the drifts climb higher and higher. Roach continues to slow.

Beyond the fear, Geralt starts to feel genuine panic, and he’s not sure he’s felt that since he was a little boy. Jaskier’s breathing is slowing under his hand, his rise and fall of his chest growing thinner, weaker with each breath. His heartbeat’s becoming sluggish, blood oozing from his nose, dripping from his mouth. He’s stopped trembling. The spectre of death looms close over him, and Geralt can  _ smell  _ it, but he’s afraid he can’t outrun it.

Roach is too slow, so slow he thinks he could run faster. As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he knows he has to do it; it’s the only option left. He’ll be faster than Roach, at this point. She can’t navigate the path back up to Kaer Morhen in the snow as well as he can.

Geralt pulls Roach to an abrupt halt. His brothers stop beside him, but he doesn’t speak, dismounting and pulling Jaskier with him. He’s grateful for his unconsciousness so Jaskier doesn’t have to feel this pain, at least.

“I’ll be faster on foot,” Geralt finally explains, securing Jaskier against his chest. He lashes him on with the straps of his sheathes and belts to free up his hands for the journey. Turning to his brothers, Geralt says, “Travel safely. Thank you for your help.”

Eskel raises his hand before taking Roach’s reins. Geralt nods to him, then to Lambert and Coën each, before he takes off at a run through the snow up the mountain.

Kaer Morhen isn’t close enough, but it comes as quickly as he can force it to come. The gates are already down, Vesemir a black smudge in the distance in all the white, waving for him, guiding him forward. Against his chest, Jaskier has gone unnaturally white, nearly blue. If he couldn’t hear his heartbeat, Geralt would think he looked dead, and he has to force himself to look away. He doesn’t want to remember this.

“Geralt!” Vesemir calls. Geralt forces himself through the last of the drifts, not daring to let himself feel any sort of relief until Jaskier is with Yennefer and, if he has any luck left at all, Jaskier wakes up again.

Geralt finally reaches Vesemir. The old man puts one hand over Jaskier’s face. It’s only for a moment before he plants that same hand on Geralt’s back and shoves him forward, guiding him deeper into Kaer Morhen. Neither of them speak, but Geralt can hear where every heartbeat is in the place, and he can hear Ciri running at them before her boots are crunching on the courtyard’s snow.

“Geralt!” she shrieks. She slides to a stop and nearly collides with his side, but she manages to right herself quickly enough to fall into step beside them instead. “Is this him? The bard? Dandelion? Jaskier? Is he already dead?”

Before Geralt feels like he’ll snap, Vesemir says, “Ciri, child, run ahead and alert Yennefer that she needs to receive the bard urgently.”

Happy to have a task, Ciri shoots ahead, quick as lightning, to get to Yennefer’s rooms before them. Geralt follows after her until he’s crashing into a room filled with firelight and bottles.

Yennefer’s already stripped the bed against the back wall for them, and so Geralt deposits Jaskier on it, ginger with his head, cupping his skull as he lowers it down to the stuffed mattress. He looks worse like this, he thinks, so small and ghostly-blue, wrapped in Eskel’s enormous cloak. Yennefer yanks that off of him almost instantly anyways, leaving him just as bare as the bed he’s curled up, unconscious, in the center of.

“Geralt, get out of my way if you’re not going to help,” Yennefer snaps at him. Geralt backs up against the wall, watching as Yennefer climbs up onto the bed. She sits up on her knees, all her dark hair pulled back, a loose white dress already getting stained by Jaskier’s lifeblood, leaking out of him across the mattress. His heartbeat’s nearly as slow as Geralt’s, now. The terror and panic are still heavy and high inside his chest, even as he tries to fight them back down.

“What happened?” Ciri asks, pressed against the wall beside Geralt. When he looks down at her, she’s not looking at his eyes, but at something on his face. He tugs his glove off to touch his face and comes away with blood smeared on his fingertips. “Is that  _ yours?” _

Geralt stares down at his hand.

“No,” he tells her. She reaches up and grips his forearm in her small hands. The two of them lock eyes again before she pushes his arm aside and embraces him, burying her face in his chest. He knows it can’t be comfortable, with his armor and all the blood, but she holds him impossibly tight, refusing to let go. She turns her face out so she can look at Jaskier on the bed, watching Yennefer kneel over him, hands secured on either side of his face as she works. Geralt stares at them, too, but he feels like he’s not really seeing them.

When Geralt looks at Jaskier, even now, he sees  _ Jaskier.  _ He sees everything he is. It’s the same way he used to feel when Jaskier would fall asleep on nights Geralt didn’t need to, when he’d insisted they camp so Jaskier and Roach could rest while he kept watch. The small, contemplative moments when he’d considered Jaskier as a person, as a partner, as the whole of him that he is. He can still see that in Jaskier now, even through the blood, through the bone and gore. He can still see  _ Jaskier,  _ through the fear that he never will again.

Yennefer’s magic is dramatic as ever; the room is quickly filled with a whipping wind and a wet fog, plastering Geralt’s hair to his face and Ciri’s to hers. Yennefer’s chanting something Geralt can’t hear, but he does make out his name when she shouts it.

“Stay here,” Geralt instructs Ciri, setting her hand firmly on the windowsill. She grips it tightly for balance as Geralt fights his way through the wind to the bed.

“Get me the red bottle, grey dust inside,” Yennefer orders him. Geralt is fast, grabs the bottle she’s asked for and uncorks it, turns it over. She pries Jaskier’s jaw and eyes wide open and dumps the dust into his face and mouth. He doesn’t even respond. His blown-wide eyes, pupils dilated to make them seem so hugely blue, stare blankly above him; he seems all the more dead for it.

“Yennefer,” Geralt says. He knows how broken he sounds even to his own ears, despite his best efforts to keep it together. It’s enough that Yennefer looks back at him, too. Whatever she finds on his face makes understanding and conviction bloom on hers.

“He’s not going to die, Geralt,” Yennefer tells him. “Blue bottle, white liquid. It’s thick like syrup.  _ Now.” _

Geralt moves, grabbing potions when she tells him. Ultimately, she stops asking for them, the bed littered in discarded little jars and bottles as Yennefer straddles Jaskier’s waist and works over him. She reaches out for Geralt, crooking her fingers to beckon him forwards. Unsure of what she wants, he climbs up to kneel on the bed beside them, pushing bottles aside to make space.

“Hold him steady, Geralt,” Yennefer tells him. “There’s poison in his blood. I have to drain it if he’s going to survive, but he’ll fight it. It’ll hurt him.”

Geralt nods, pushing Jaskier to sit limply upright. He moves like a ragdoll, limp, still staring so emptily. He seats himself behind Jaskier, pulling him up against his own chest to keep him pinned upright in one position. His arms wrap around Jaskier like steel to hold him steady.

“It’ll be alright,” Yennefer tells him quietly. He nods to her again, just once more. She looks over her shoulder to Ciri and instructs her, “Leave the room and lock the door.”

“But—”

“Ciri,  _ go,”  _ Geralt growls.

“He’s going to be alright,” Yennefer assures her. “Get Vesemir. Tell him I need a tub of hot water and the purest alcohol he has.”

Ciri runs through the wind, runs from the room, closing and bolting the door behind herself. Geralt holds Jaskier secure still when Yennefer turns back to them.

Yennefer doesn’t say anything more. She looks at Geralt hard, and he looks back, as ready as he’ll be. It must appear in his eyes, because she sets her hands on either side of Jaskier’s face and starts up chanting again. Jaskier’s entire body convulses, seizing up and tensing, pushing back into Geralt’s arms and chest, stiff as a board. His head falls back into Geralt’s face, and he catches it in one hand, keeping it upright, protecting his neck.

As if he’s not even there, Yennefer keeps working, keeps chanting, and she pries Jaskier’s lips and teeth apart with her fingertips. Smoke starts to pour from his mouth, following up after her fingertips in a trail. She twists and spools it like thread around her fingers, spooning it up into her palms, drawing it out and out and out. It’s nearly like a little marketplace magician’s trick as she drags the poison out of Jaskier with her magic.

Jaskier whimpers, the most noise he’s made since he fell unconscious. Geralt feels wild as his eyes snap up to Yennefer’s, urging her to keep going. Before long, Jaskier moans, and then his eyes flutter before they truly  _ open,  _ awareness finally seeping back into them one bit at a time.

The way Jaskier moves against him tells Geralt how much pain he’s in, just a slow writhe as he starts to whimper again, helpless noises getting wrenched up from his throat. Geralt holds him tighter, immobilizes him as best as possible so Yennefer can keep working. Jaskier jerks against him, gets his head back enough to look at Geralt from the corner of his eye. He reminds Geralt of a trapped animal, wild and feral with pain and fear, seeking Geralt’s help when he can’t do anything to give it.

“You’ll be okay,” Geralt tells him. He’s not sure Jaskier can hear him, but he tells him anyway. He thinks he might be able to, so he keeps talking. Jaskier always asked him to; if this is his last chance to give it to him, he’ll take it. “You’re going to be okay, Jaskier. You’re just fine. You’re alright, you’re alive.” He hesitates, then says, “I’m so sorry about what I said to you. On the mountain— Jaskier, I swear, I didn’t mean it. I was angry. Not with you. You were right, you’re right, you’re my best friend.” He draws Jaskier’s temple to his mouth, kisses him hard there. “You’re going to be okay. Just hold on, Jaskier. Hold on for me.”

Jaskier whimpers again, looking at him still from the corner of his eye. He coughs, then gags as Yennefer draws the last of the poison-smoke out, a tendril that whips up out of Jaskier’s throat. He collapses like a puppet with his strings cut, leaving Geralt to hold him up and Yennefer to capture and bottle the poison before it can escape the hold of her magic.

Geralt shifts to lay Jaskier on his back, looking him over. Yennefer’s healing magic has started stitching up the worst of his injuries, but he’s still in a bad way. The open welts on his back need to be flushed and treated; he has burns that need salves and missing chunks of flesh that need to be stitched if there’s enough left to pull together, and packed and wrapped if there isn’t. He has to reset and strap down broken bones, tape cracked ribs. Jaskier’s a bloody mess.

A banging knock at the door shakes the room and breaks the hazy working silence they’d settled into.

“Come in,” Yennefer calls. Geralt accepts the healer’s kit she passes over and starts packing the worst of Jaskier’s wounds. When Ciri appears between them, she has a clear bottle in her hand, pushing it into Yennefer’s hands. Yennefer examines Jaskier again herself, standing beside the bed as she starts pouring alcohol into his open wounds, flushing them out so Geralt can pack them as needed. Each time a drops hits his skin, he twitches. Now and then, he’ll make a soft noise, but he’s starting to drift into unconsciousness again.

“Stay awake,” Geralt instructs him. He looks to Ciri, then tells her, “Talk to him. Keep him awake.”

Ciri nods, looking wide-eyed down at Jaskier on the bed. She sits on the edge, right beside Yennefer. For a moment, she seems unsure of what to say, but she gets over this in a heartbeat and says, “My grandmother used to say she hated your songs. But she never stopped bards from playing them.”

Jaskier huffs a laugh. He tries to talk, fails; tries again, and manages, “Sounds right.”

Ciri smiles at him. “I always loved listening to your songs. There was a bard in the market who used to sing your songs all the time, you know. I was telling Geralt earlier how much I loved your song about summers.”

Jaskier lifts one hand slowly, reaching for Ciri. She grasps his hand between both of hers, heedless of the blood smearing all over her palms and between her fingers. Geralt feels a surge of pride for her, for both of them. The three people that mean the most to him are in this room right now with him, in this bed with him; his family is here with him in Kaer Morhen. Wildly, he thinks that, if Jaskier survives —  _ when  _ Jaskier survives, he tells himself — he doesn’t want them to ever leave here. He wants to keep them all safe here forever, if he can help it. There’s no part of him that can stand the idea of losing one of them again.

“Do you remember it?” Ciri asks Jaskier, prompts him to answer. “I don’t really remember how it goes. Can you remind me how it goes?” She gasps, but it doesn’t sound all genuine. She’s still learning her performances and her deception, but Jaskier manages a small smile for her, even when Geralt starts stitching his wounds with catgut and the pain blanches his face. “Jaskier— Will you sing for me? Can I have my own Dandelion performance?”

Jaskier’s thumb strokes the back of Ciri’s hand in slow, small sweeps. He leaves a bloody smear there, but Ciri doesn’t even look down at it.

“Princess Cirilla,” Jaskier manages to say. It sounds like it takes him so much to do it, wheezing through the words, but he tells her, “You may have as  _ many _ as you want.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Ciri says. “Isn’t that wonderful, Geralt?”

Jaskier shifts his head, just a bit, to look up at Geralt. He still looks horrible, like a dead thing on a battlefield, but he gives Geralt a little smile like they’re just sitting in a tavern in some town somewhere, like someone’s just complimented Jaskier’s singing and Jaskier’s looked to Geralt, all cocky, as if to say,  _ Would you look at that? _

Geralt’s missed Jaskier so fiercely, more than he even realized until he had him back. He cups Jaskier’s face in one hand and kisses him hard, unable to stop himself.

“Yes,” Geralt answers Ciri, though he’s still looking down at Jaskier. “It is.”

He lifts his head so he can return to stitching Jaskier back together. Ciri draws Jaskier’s attention back to her, says, “Geralt hardly ever talks. He’s said more to you than I think he’s ever said before ever.”

Jaskier huffs another small laugh. It makes Geralt flicker a smile down at his hands as he sews Jaskier’s upper left arm back together.

“What do you know,” Jaskier murmurs.

“Do you remember the song I was talking about?” Ciri asks. “That summer one? It’s been a while, but… There’s some line about… Oh, I don’t remember. Something about the sun.”

Jaskier’s head tilts back again. He makes eye contact with Geralt. In Geralt’s memory, Jaskier is strumming on his lute, sitting in the sweet summer grasses in the warm morning light, staring so lovingly into Geralt’s yellow eyes and singing about how they remind him of the sun. He’d knocked Jaskier’s lute aside, ignored his indignant noises in favor of kissing him senseless. He wonders if Jaskier remembers that, too. If he’s remembering it now.

It’s soft, but Jaskier starts humming for Ciri. He hums over where he was supposed to start singing, circles back around, catches his breath. Tries to sing quietly, even if it dips in and out, sometimes caught on a sharp inhale or a bitten-off cry. It soothes Geralt as much as it does Ciri; he ignores Vesemir and Yennefer’s eyes on him as he works over Jaskier.

* * *

The pain is unbearable, but Jaskier bears it.

He has to; he knows he has no other choice, that it’s this or death, and that’s not much of a choice at all.

Really, it’s not all that bad. The worst of it seems to be over, and now’s just the aftermath, though it  _ hurts _ like a cursed son of a motherfucker. Geralt and Yennefer stitch him back together, piece by burning piece, while Cirilla transparently attempts to distract him from the pain. Eventually, he accidentally bites his own tongue in a fit of pain, and Yennefer gives him a hunk of wood to bite on. He keeps humming around it; it’s for Cirilla, he tells himself, even though it’s just as much for him, to keep him at least semi-coherent and awake through the pain.

It takes forever, it seems, but Jaskier will take forever when he thought he had no time left at all. Yennefer finishes before Geralt, and she leaves the bed he’s on, pacing over to the corner of the room by the fire and a huge tub of water. She speaks with four men there, talking too low for Jaskier to hear.

The longer he’s conscious, the more he’s able to piece together. The men resemble Geralt strongly enough in all the important ways, enough to tell him that they’re Witchers, too. By inference, he realizes they must be in Kaer Morhen. He’s exhausted with relief, the fact that he can finally  _ relax. _

A storm is raging outside, Jaskier can tell that much, too, so he can’t keep an eye on the sun, and he can’t tell how long it’s been since they arrived. He knows it’s a long time until they’re finished, long enough that Yennefer looks exhausted and the other Witchers have gone to bed. Cirilla has fallen asleep against Jaskier in the bed, head settled on an uninjured patch of his shoulder, curled up into his side.

“I’ll take her to bed,” Yennefer says tiredly, dragging herself to her feet, pulling her stained dress with her. She tips Ciri into her arms, lifting her effortlessly.

“Thank you,” Jaskier tells her. Yennefer inclines her head to him. “I mean it, you mad, cryptic woman.  _ Thank you.” _

“Don’t mention it,” Yennefer says. She looks to Geralt and says, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Yen,” Geralt replies. She’s nearly out the door by the time Geralt adds, “Thank you.”

Yennefer doesn’t reply, but she kicks the door shut softly behind herself until it slides closed to stay. The two of them are left in silence for a moment.

“I’m sure you’re exhausted,” Geralt begins. He’s hesitant, but he still says, “I think you should probably bathe before sleeping, though. If you’re willing— If you want me to help you.”

Jaskier only pauses for a moment before agreeing, trying to sit up, propping himself up on shaking elbows. He nearly collapses before Geralt catches him.

“Yes, please,” Jaskier asks. Geralt slides an arm under his back and another under his knees to lift him from the gore and healer’s equipment all over the bed.

“We’ll sleep in another room,” Geralt assures him, taking him to the tub of water by the fire. He settles Jaskier in at one end as slowly as he can, gingerly placing him down bit by bit. Once he’s in, Geralt makes short work of his armor and his clothes, stripping himself bare so he can climb into the tub with him. He has to pull Jaskier into his chest, just like he had in the bed, to keep him upright in the water.

Jaskier relaxes into him completely, finally, slumping with his head rolled back against Geralt’s shoulder. It’s like no time has passed at all, for a moment.

As if Jaskier could hear the thought, he says, “I’ve missed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt says automatically. “I didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t you?” Jaskier asks.

_ “No,”  _ Geralt insists. “You’ve been with me so long, Jaskier. Of course things happen when you’re around me. You’re  _ always  _ around me.”

Jaskier huffs. Geralt can’t tell if it’s a laugh or not. “I meant to tell you you’re a hypocrite.”

“Why?” Geralt asks, frowning. Jaskier tips his head back.

“You said I’m the reason all the shit in your life happens,” Jaskier says. He takes a breath, winded, before continuing, “But I got kidnapped because of you, so that just makes us square, don’t you think?” Geralt’s chest seizes, and Jaskier says, “Love,  _ no, _ I didn’t mean it like that. It wasn’t  _ because  _ of you, just— intended for you. Not your fault.”

“This  _ is  _ my fault,” Geralt insists lowly. “You never should’ve been alone in the first place. I never should’ve said those things I said to you, Jaskier. I never would’ve—”

“Geralt,” Jaskier interrupts him. “You’d just had—”

“It doesn’t  _ matter,”  _ Geralt cuts him off.

“I’m telling you I  _ understand—” _

“Let me say this,” Geralt says—  _ asks,  _ really. Jaskier falls silent. He shifts to tip his head a bit more, so he can look at Geralt. Geralt looks back, holds his eye. After a long moment, Jaskier nods a little. Geralt continues, “I neglected destiny. Not just with the Child Surprise, not just with Yennefer, but with  _ you,  _ Jaskier. The Law of Surprise bound Ciri to me, and the djinn bound Yennefer to me, but we are just  _ bound,  _ Jaskier.” He lifts one of Jaskier’s hands from the water and brings it to his mouth. His lips brush Jaskier’s wet knuckles as he says, “I choose to bind myself to you, all the time. I don’t have a choice with anything else. I didn’t even choose to be a Witcher.” He pushes his face into Jaskier’s palm and says there, “I choose you.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier says tremulously. “What about Yennefer?”

“Yennefer and I are bound by destiny,” Geralt tells him. Jaskier’s heart is rabbiting in his chest; one of Geralt’s hands settles over it, warm and heavy, grounding. “We’re not— doing any more than that. Anymore.” Geralt hesitates, for a moment, before he asks Jaskier, “Would you want to be… I don’t mean to put you—”

“Would you like to be my  _ husband,  _ Geralt?” Jaskier asks, a warm rush filling his face even as he tries to keep his tone light enough to be teasing. “You don’t want to bed anyone but me anymore? Have I so  _ wooed  _ you, White Wolf?”

“Yes,” Geralt tells him. Jaskier stops short.

“Wh— Yes?” Jaskier echoes.

“Yes,” Geralt repeats. “I don’t know if you want to marry me. If you can marry me, I don’t know. But if that’s what you want, then, yes.”

Jaskier feels like maybe he  _ has  _ died. It feels like it, if he’s done well enough in his life to warrant getting everything he ever wanted after he’s died. Then again, he’s fairly certain he’s not deserving of the golden-palace-in-the-clouds sort of afterlife. This all just might be insane enough to be real.

“But what do  _ you  _ want?” Jaskier asks.

“I have it,” Geralt says. “I’ll keep you safe here. We’ll take care of Ciri, until she’s ready to fulfill her destiny. She’ll be strong enough to rule, and you can…” Geralt trails off, thinking. Jaskier waits for him. Ultimately, he says, “You can retire to the coast.”

“I can?” Jaskier asks.

“Yes,” Geralt says. “And I can go with you.”

“You  _ can?”  _ Jaskier asks.

“If you’ll have me,” Geralt amends. “You must be exhausted. You should rest before making any big decisions like this, Jaskier. Why don’t you rest your eyes?”

“I don’t want to rest my eyes,” Jaskier argues, even though he  _ is  _ just as exhausted as Geralt has to know him to be.

“I’ll still be here when you wake up,” Geralt assures him.

“And will you still want to go to the coast with me?” Jaskier asks. “What if you feel like you did on the mountain again, hm? You’ve never been my biggest fan. Perhaps I’m—”

“When you wake up,” Geralt cuts him off, smart to stop him before he gets too worked up, “I’ll be right beside you. And I will apologize again.”

Jaskier waits.

“And still want to go to the coast,” Geralt continues. “I’m sorry, Jaskier.”

“Me, too,” Jaskier says. He tips his head up and kisses Geralt softly, slowly. When they separate, he can’t help but sigh.

“Rest,” Geralt murmurs.

Jaskier closes his eyes, sinking a bit deeper into the water so he can rest his head back against Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt holds him close, checks to make sure his bandages are still tight enough to keep water out of his wounds. Still, Jaskier relaxes into sleep against him in the tub, trusting him as if no time has passed between them at all, as if no hurts have been caused ever. For a moment, Jaskier feels young and unmarred, blissfully in love and with his whole life ahead of him. In a way, he suspects, this is still a little true. Enough to get by.

“I love you,” Geralt says, unprompted. Jaskier can’t remember the last time he heard that, but he’s impossibly happy to hear it again. It’s as if there’s no pain at all. “I’ll be here when you wake up. Rest, Jaskier. Sleep. You’ll be okay.”

Jaskier hums, eyes closed against the warmth of the hot tub water and the fire crackling beside them. Geralt’s like a wall of heat behind him, around him,  _ surrounding  _ him, but it’s so comforting and grounding he never wants it to leave.

With the potions and medicines and hot water all lessening his pain, Jaskier’s able to settle enough to drift into sleep. He can hear still, as he’s falling. He hears well enough that he knows when Geralt starts to hum to him, the old song about kissing the sun in the sweet grasses on those hazy summer mornings.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come follow me on Twitter at [@nicole__mello](https://twitter.com/nicole__mello) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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